AN elderly Jamaican mother residing overseas is frantic with worry over the whereabouts of her only son, 48-year-old Mark Finn, who has been missing from his St Catherine community since August 22 this year.
“I keep calling his phone and WhatsApp, but it keeps ringing and goes to voicemail. I leave messages, but nobody calls me back. I call every day. So much things going on in Jamaica, it’s scary,” the anguished mother told the Jamaica Observer on Sunday.
Her angst is multiplied by the fact that Finn, who resided at Lot 415 in close proximity to the Greater Portmore Police Station (Hundred Man), Braeton Parkway, suffers from a mental condition for which he is being treated.
The woman said she is at her wits’ end and fears that her only child has been murdered since he has not returned to the home he shares with a stepmother and sibling since then.
“He suffers from very bad depression, but when he gets his meds you can’t even know. Oh God, help me! My only child, my only baby, the only one God bless me with, I can’t afford to lose him,” the anguished mother stated.
The woman who said she has tried on several occasions to get the police to assist her search told the Observer that “no one cares to help” her.
The 66-year-old mother said she last spoke to her son a few days before she was told by the relatives he lived with that he had disappeared.
“Before he disappeared he called me and I missed the call because my phone was on vibrate. I called him back and left a message and said Mark, call me back, but he didn’t call me back, he didn’t call me back,” she said forlornly.
The mother, who said she tried to ascertain from those relatives how he was dressed before he left in order to supply information to the authorities, said their account was less than helpful. She also said she was not told about her son’s absence until three days after he was missing.
“They said he was at the house and he was leaving going through the gate and the stepmom asked him about the light bill, and he left and did not come back. They said he had a black bag on his back, but they cannot remember what he was wearing,” the elderly mother said worriedly.
She said Finn, who does not work because of his condition, has only disappeared once before but had been returned home by cops.
“About three years ago he was missing and the cops, they pick him up in Ocho Rios. They said they saw him walking and wandering around. They kept him until his dad go and get him. He wasn’t making any trouble,” she shared.
The mother, who said she has attempted to file for her son so he could live with her overseas, said he was turned down after the interview because of a prison record, which she says has been expunged.
“I filed for my son, and when he went to the embassy for his interview they turned him down for something he did not do. He was accused of breaking glass at a game shop when he was younger. I had his record expunged and they still turned him down twice. I see people kill people and come up here, my son don’t kill nobody, they said he broke a glass he didn’t break and I had his record expunged, and they still turned him down,” she told the Observer.
Sunday a representative of the Hundred Man police station in Portmore, St Catherine, when contacted, said she could not verify whether the report was made there at the time. The individual, after conducting an almost hour-long search, told the Observer that no record of a report pertaining to Finn’s disappearance had been found. She said if the report had been made, it would have been logged and easily tracked.
Sunday, a family friend of Finn’s mother, who told the Observer that she had known the missing man from he was a baby, said she harbours some hope that he will be found.
“To my belief, I don’t feel like him pass or anything, mi feel like him still alive but knowing where he is, it feel hurtful, honestly, because I have kids too and because I know him from he was a baby and he was not somebody who gives trouble; it really hurts. He doesn’t really wander, he goes out like to church. The doctor said he is not a mad person. He has manners and he will stand up and talk to you and he will listen,” she told the Observer.
Describing Finn further, she said, “He is a peaceful person, he doesn’t really talk and he doesn’t give problem. He has a little mental issue so I was the one who went with him to the doctor, along with his uncle, on one occasion. He is not somebody who walks dirty or troubles anybody. He will just sit and talk to himself. He is not a menace to society, like go around and lick down people and stuff like that. He is not that type of person.”
World Mental Health Day was observed on Tuesday, October 10 this year.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Mark Finn can contact the Jamaica Observer’s news desk at (876)960-6593 or the Greater Portmore Police Station at (876)949-8422.